


be the overflow

by laskaris



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Game Spoilers, M/M, POV Second Person, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-27 19:00:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6296005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laskaris/pseuds/laskaris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>You’ve both spent years knowing that he’ll die and leave you, someday. You’d never spent any time at all thinking that it might be the other way around.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	be the overflow

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to go to bed early to work on my thesis today. Instead I woke up at 3 am to write this fucking thing. I hate ninja story ideas. Especially terrible ones like this.   
> \- will I ever be done writing sad AUs? the answer is "no".   
> \- I had a number of songs on repeat while I was writing this, but the one I associate most with this fic is "Contention" from FFXIV. I recommend listening to it while reading this.   
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZL9YWDgXjw . The other two I was listening to on repeat were "What the Water Gave Me" by Florence + the Machine and "EXEC_FLIP_FUSIONSPHERE" from AT3.

The first story that you remember reading with Sorey as a child was the story of a mermaid who fell in love with a human man. Neither of you knew what a mermaid was and argued about it in circles for hours before you managed to actually finish the story..

_(Was she a seraph by another name? Was she something else entirely? Children’s arguments, of the kind you’d had hundreds of and would have hundreds more of. Neither of you had ever seen the sea beyond the pictures in your books or any body of water larger than the sacred spring, and the idea of a people dwelling under the water was almost beyond both your comprehension.)_

Sorey forgets the argument immediately once you read the ending, trembling and outraged in the way that only he can be even just at the unfair ending of a fairy tale. You are both still children, both still years away from leaving Elysia, from what waits for the two of you, but even now you can see the shadows of the man he’ll grow up to be, warmth and light and unyielding optimism, the desire to make things _right._ “It’s not fair! Why did she have to die, when she _really_ loved him?!” 

_(you are painfully aware, even at your young age, of his mortality. You understand, in a way he doesn’t yet, that love is sometimes not enough to save you.)_

***

You’ve carried that truth in your heart for years, buried deep yet aching clear: someday, someday, Sorey will die, as humans do, and there will be nothing you can do to save him. That no matter how much you love him, he’ll die, and you’ll have to go on without him for longer than you ever had him. 

_(even in all your battles, you don’t think about the possibility that you’ll die first and leave him alone, even after Dezel, because you’ve spent so long preparing yourself for that inevitably, until Mayvin and the gun, until the moment it becomes clear what Sorey will have to do, and-_

_You lie awake trembling next to him, that night, long after he’s fallen into uneasy slumber. His arms are even tighter than usual around your waist and your thoughts spin in circles. Sorey stirs, troubled even in the depths of his sleep, and you turn in his arms to press a kiss to his brow and soothe him back to sleep;_

_It’s not that you aren’t afraid of the idea of dying, because you are, but you’re more afraid of hurting him in a way you can’t fix, of leaving him alone. You’ve hurt each other before, in small ways - while sparring, accidents in ruin exploration - and in larger - his rejection of you as a Sub Lord and your pain sharpening your tongue even more harshly - but you’ve been together to smooth those hurts over, to work them out. This, when it happens, will be different, because you won’t be there to help him when he needs you most. You never wanted to be a burden. And yet-_

_His arms tighten even more, almost crushingly tight, and you know you’ll have bruises in the morning. Even in sleep, he doesn’t want to let you go, and your heart aches. You’ve both spent years knowing that he’ll die and leave you, someday. You’d never spent any time at all thinking that it might be the other way around.)_

The stars shine brightly overhead on the balcony in Lastonbell as Sorey lays out his plan: the implication of him having to sacrifice all his seraphim in the process of severing Hedelf from Maotelus has hung between you all since Mayvin died, but he still clings to optimism. Unwavering hope is at the core of who Sorey is, brightness and warmth, even as he’s had to grow into the Shepherd’s true duty. If he can hope that there is a way for you all to survive, he’ll believe in it all the way to the bitter end. 

You offer him a thought, hazy and half-formed, that maybe, if he and Rose can work fast enough after the bonds are severed, that maybe, just maybe-. It’s an idea he latches onto, and you hold back the other half, because you can’t bear to crush his hopes: maybe the others might live, but you won’t. You’re the youngest of his seraphim, the youngest and least experienced, barely a mote in the eye of eternity: a point, barely fixed. Centuries from your full growth, from your full potential, from everything you could have been and now will never be. 

_(you’d worked yourself down to the bone, night after night, slipping out of bed to practice your artes, to master what power you can, desperate to not be a burden. Your control and power have increased, markedly, over the past months, but it’s not enough. It will never be enough._

_It’s a simple truth: you’re not old enough. Not old enough, not fixed enough, to hold onto yourself, where the others might be able to, if Sorey works fast enough. You are too young, where it is age and not control over your powers is what matters. And there is nothing you can do to change that.)_

The promise you make him on the balcony almost trembles on your tongue, but you manage to keep your voice even. It’s the first time you’ve knowingly lied to Sorey: you’re straightforward with your feelings and unsparing with the tartness of your tongue, give him the truth that he needs to hear. You don’t lie to him and yet now you do, because while you know the knowledge of your death won’t shake his resolve, not now, you don’t want him to dwell on it. You don’t want it to cloud his heart. 

_(it’s not so very much of a lie, after all, because it’s what you would do, if you could. You would wait for him forever.)_

***

_(where do seraphim go, when they die? Humans sometimes become seraphim, if their hearts are pure enough, but what happens to seraphs? It’s a question you asked once, when you were small, and then held in your heart, quietly, after Dezel had died._

_When you were small, Gramps told you that a seraph goes back to their element, some part of them living on, even after they were gone. You thought of it again, after Dezel, and it helps to think of part of him still watching over Rose, silent and invisible in the breeze that sometimes stirs her hair. You think of it again, this last night, lying awake next to Sorey with his arms wrapped crushing-tight around your waist._

_You’d like that, you think, some part of you still being there in the rain, in the rivers, in the tide, long after you’re gone, centuries from now when Sorey wakes up again. It won’t be the same as being there by his side, as seeing the world that is your dream, too, but it’s something._

_Sorey stirs, and opens his eyes, unfocused in the midnight. “Mikleo?” he questions, soft and sleepy, slurring his words the way he does when he’s sleep-drunk. “You’re still awake?”_

_“Go back to sleep.” you tell him, quietly, and he shifts a bit, his weight heavy on you._

_“You, too.” he insists, and you lean up a bit to press a kiss against his brow._

_“In a little while.” you lie awake for a little longer after he’s been lulled back to sleep, let the moment linger. You’re not like Sorey, the romantic, with his love for terrible poetry and embarrassingly flowery declarations: you’ve always let him know how you’ve felt through your actions rather than your words, sharp-tongued and sarcastic especially to him. But once, just once, knowing how little time is left, you want to actually say the words to him (but not when he’s awake, it would be embarrassing and he’d wonder what’s gotten into you.)_

_Instead, you press your lips against his ear and breathe out, the barest whisper. “I love you.”_

_He grins, in his sleep, and you wonder for a moment what Sorey’s dreaming of, as you curl up against and beneath him and fall asleep thinking of becoming rain. You would like that, you think: what you’d like most is not to die at all, but since that isn’t an option, you’d like to at least continue to be with him after you’re gone, even in some small way._

_Sorey’s always liked the rain, after all.)_

***

You lag behind, a little, with Rose as you leave. You’ve been writing this whole time, keeping a journal of the journey: Sorey teases you, about how you should write a book, and you wanted to, and maybe you would have. You’ve written as much as you can, as far as you can: someone else will have to finish it. 

_(you wrote a letter for Sorey, too, tucked into the front cover, wrote everything you felt and held back in it. Words on paper are a poor substitute, but it’s all you can leave him for when he wakes up.)_

“Could you hold onto this?” you ask Rose, because she’s the most likely one to come back from all this, and hold out your journal. 

“Yeah, sure.” Rose says, cheerful as ever, and takes it, tucking it away into her pack. “I’ll give it back after everything’s over.”

You know that she understands what you mean without either of you having to say it: she’s always been the one trying to cheer up the group, trying to keep you all moving forward, but Rose is a realist. She knows what you mean, why you’re giving this to her,and she’ll make sure that Sorey gets it, even if she has to leave it in his house in Elysia for the next few hundred years.

As you walk up to join Sorey, Zaveid drapes an arm briefly across your shoulders, and Lailah gives you an understanding glance. Edna, for her part, jabs you in the ribs with her umbrella, and you yelp. 

“Hurry up, Meebo, we don’t have all day waiting for you.” she says, deadpan: you almost miss it, because you’re taking the bait again, just like you always do, but there’s fractionally less bite to her voice than usual. Sorey turns his head and beams as you walk up by him, and you do your best to smile back at him. 

_(you don’t want to leave him. You don’t want to leave any of them. But you have no choice.)_

***

And then there’s no time left, all bonds but one shattered: Sorey’s reaching out his hand for you and calling your name one last time and you flow together, one for the last time, breathe in move think as one.. It’s not quite the same as with your bow, but close enough: you aim, you steady Sorey’s hand, just the same as you always have.

_(you try not to think about it. About what will happen. You try not to think about it, and Sorey’s hand jerks, sharply, before you steady it in the same instant._

_Go on, you tell him without words, and give him everything that you have. All the feeling that you’ve been holding back, and everything that he knows as well as your name. How very glad you are that you were with him, that you could be at his side. Go on._

_Mikleo, he says, one last time, just before he pulls the trigger and you dissolve into light.)_

***

You coalesce back into yourself hours later, though long after the others do, and everything hurts: you weren’t expecting to come back at all, even for a moment, instead you expected to simply to dissolve into light and water. You can barely hold yourself together, trembling as you force yourself up: your hands, when you glance down at them, are translucent, light shining through them and flickering transparent. Instead, you fix your eyes straight ahead, on the column of light that marks where Sorey sleeps. 

You manage to stumble forward a few steps: one, two, three, no more, and every step feels like you’re walking barefoot across broken glass, like you’re walking on knives, and you’re reminded of that story you and Sorey read as children, of the mermaid who loved a man and died and turned to seafoam, because love wasn’t enough to save her. You stumble forward, two, three, and collapse, because you don’t have the strength to go any further. 

Edna’s there and she catches you, falls to her knees with all your dead weight in her arms: she’s strong, strong as the earth, but you’re still taller and heavier than she’ll ever be. “Stupid Meebo,” she says, almost deadpan, _always_ with the stupid nicknames. “Get up. It’s too early to rest.” Her voice trembles, a little bit, in a way you would have missed once but catch now: she knows, as well as you do, as well as the others do, that you’re dying. That you weren’t ever going to come out of this alive. 

The others are there, too - Lailah, gentle and concerned, Rose pale and strained, and Zaveid, all smarmy playfulness drained away into seriousness, and you think they’re trying to say something, but you can’t hear them, their voices fading into a confusing cacophony. You can’t even hear yourself. 

“Sorry,” you think you manage to say, because you _are_ sorry, it’s all mixed up inside and you don’t really have the strength to say much else. You’re sorry you can’t stay: you’re sorry that they have to watch yet another friend die, so soon after Dezel and Eizen and Sorey’s centuries-long sleep, sorry that if you _had_ to die that it had to be right at the end, sorry that- “Tell Sorey I’m sorry, too.”

“ _Idiot_ ,” Edna’s voice is clear in your ears, for a moment, clear and small, as she turns her head away and you remember how she’d turned away behind her parasol after Eizen, small and cracking. Not something you’d ever wanted to see again: you had your differences, still had your differences, she was hard to get along with, but she was, in her strange way, still your friend . “Tell him yourself.” 

Lailah’s hand is warm and soft on your face, fingers resting on your cheek with an infinity of gentleness. You think she’s saying something, but you can’t hear the words, only see her lips moving, but even that is lost as your vision goes, too, and then last of all, touch-

The last thoughts you have as everything fades to silence and light and you dissolve into water in Edna’s arms are of Sorey, of your regret and your love, and one last lingering hope. That someday, somehow, he will let you go. 

**Author's Note:**

> \- am I fanfic-writing Triple Satan yet?  
> \- this is probably all kinds of overdramatic and terrible but at least it's done. and I'm not writing a followup to it.


End file.
